Personnel: Steve Roach (flute, didjeridu, synthesizer, drums, frame drum, dumbek, percussion, bells, sampler); Florence Riggs (vocals); Robert Rich (steel guitar); Robin Horn (cymbals, gong, Chinese gong); Guy Thouin (tabla, percussion).
Audio Mixer: Steve Roach.
Liner Note Author: Steve Roach.
Recording information: Studio 270, Montreal, Canada; Timeroom, Tucson, AZ.
Photographer: Chris Mooney.
Unknown Contributor Roles: Robin Horn; Steve Roach.
WORLD'S EDGE is both a culmination of styles and a brave step forward for Steve Roach. On disc one of this two-disc set, he continues to mine and explore the tableau of soundscapes he first unearthed on DREAMTIME RETURN, WESTERN SPACES, and DESERT SOLITAIRE. With its cavernous chords echoing the lonely mesas and sprawling tundras of the American southwest, WORLD'S EDGE captures the senses via a broad array of electronic timbres and thunderclaps of percussion. This is music of sensual and surreal power--a stimulating, provocative immersion into the canyons of the psyche. Roach flavors his sweeping electronic panoramas with didjeridu, an assortment of frame drums, rainsticks, and other indigenous native intruments. On "Thunderground," swells of electronic waves ebb while massive enclaves of drumbeats build toward an explosive climax. After recovering from this wringing of the senses, disc two's one epic piece, "To the Threshold of Silence" links Roach's pre-ambient stylings with his fourth world musings into a subtly altering, galvanizing work. Awesome.
Professional Reviews
Option (July-Aug./92, p.121) - "..Roach evokes a sense of latent but powerful natural forces...[Roach] pulls the listener into a slow-moving, almost subliminal kaleidoscope of sound, with a deep, subtle rhythmic component softening the severity of the synth drones.."
